Welcome to iCritic, one of the internets most dedicated film review sites! Unlike most websites, iCritic has never been about flashy graphics, videos, or scandelous gossip. It has always been about the movies and the art of them. Film critic Kevin T. Rodriguez has been the designated film critic for ten years, and brings his unique view to what he watches. Enjoy the site!

There is a saying that it is unwise to negotiate with
terrorists, but in the case of oil tycoon - J. Paul Getty - finding out his
grandson was kidnapped and being held for ransom, he took that belief of not
negotiating with terrorists and turned it into the kind of business bargaining
Donald Trump would have happily included in his best-selling book “The Art of
the Deal.”For Getty (Christopher
Plummer), finding out his grandson was kidnapped and being ransomed for $17
million dollars did not cause much concern.Though he claims “Paul is special” to his personal ex-CIA agent Fletcher
Chase (Mark Wahlberg), he feels that if he pays one ransom, he’ll soon have to
pay more (he DOES have about a dozen grandchildren after all).What the movie seems to be pondering is whether
Getty had good reasons for not paying the ransom, or if this is a man who saw
his life in nothing but dollars and cents.

Alas, the movie only spends so much time with the frugal
man, keeping us at arm’s length and wondering what he is truly thinking at
times.This sometimes works and
sometimes doesn’t, but it was obvious to me that director Ridley Scott wanted to
show a man who is flawed and human, while keeping enough distance to make him
seem larger than life.If anyone was
going to have much luck in presenting such a complex character in movie form,
it was going to be Scott.That he falls
just short of that in “All the Money in the World” is disappointing, but
understandable, and we’ll have to wait until next year to see if Danny Boyle
can pull it off in television form.But,
as someone wise in your life likely told you at some point, when one door
closes another one opens, and for Scott that door comes in the form of Michelle
Williams as a worried mother who just wants to see her son returned home.Her name is Gail and she is a Getty by
marriage.

She divorced her husband years ago and accepted none of her father-in-law’s
money in exchange for full custody of her children.She still lays some claim to the Getty name
though, and when she tells the terrorists who kidnapped her son that she simply
doesn’t have any money, they casually tell her “get it from your father-in-law;
he has all the money in the world.”Well, that may be true, but how do you get it
from him?This is a man who is so cheap,
he won’t pay a maid $10 to wash his own clothes.But you won’t have much luck telling that to
kidnappers who have decided to get into the business of kidnapping people.All they know is that they want money and
they perceive that she has access to it.Some of the most heart-breaking scenes involve Gail fighting two forces
at the same time.On one hand, she is
trying to convince the terrorists to not kill her son or harm him.On the other hand, she is trying to get her
father-in-law to pay a ransom he could easily afford (but has no interest in
doing so).

This is when the movie is at it’s strongest.Strangely, the film is at its weakest when we
are dealing with Getty.At one point he
is asked what it would take to make him feel financially comfortable, and he
gives a chilling, one-word answer: “More.”It’s a scene that makes you wonder why this man feels so insecure about
his money.How can he be so cold?What in his life brought him to the point
where even his fortune is of no comfort?These are the sort of questions that are not asked (and, in all
fairness, there maybe wouldn’t have been enough time to answer them
anyway).Ridley Scott has crafted a fine
thriller where the stakes are high, the situation tense, and the negotiations
tough.Where it stumbles a bit is in the
fact that it is not as emotional as it needs to be, and the most important
character is more of a figure head.That
leaves me with the one uncertainty I have about this: Would I have been more
satisfied had these questions been addressed, or is their lack of conclusion
truly all I needed?P.S. Kevin Spacey was originally hired to play Getty, but had his scenes cut and replaced with Christopher Plummer after numerous sexual assault allegations against him surfaced. While I don’t condone the behavior that he was accused of, I do feel that this is a form of censorship, and I have no doubt Spacey would have excelled in the role. While that is a matter up for debate, I would gladly pay for a special edition BluRay of the movie to see that version restored (and having two performances to compare in the same movie might be fun to do at film school in the future).

CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents, there is some fair amount of bad language, and scenes of intense violence. Recommended for ages 17 and up.